Dionisaf - Mississippian (Whitelabrecs) [Ambient]

Dionisaf is a multi-instrumentalist, ambient and visual artist, composer and producer, currently based in Washington D.C. After studying composition in Russia during the late 2000s and early 2010s, but being dissatisfied with academia's more traditional vision and teaching, he then went in search of geographical and music adventure, ending up in Mississippi and finding creative satisfaction in the experimental and ambient world.

He hit the music release ground running in 2020 and hasn't stopped since. As well as his creative endeavours, he also heads up the sprawling Chitra Records label, that has its fingers in all sorts of ambient and ambient-adjacent genres. He's a busy boy.

Dionisaf mostly, although not exclusively, releases his music on his own label(s), but August 22nd sees him dropping an album for one of my favourite UK labels, Whitelabrecs. As you might have guessed from the title, it's an ode to the state that he called home for several years, and which obviously made quite an impression. I'm sure it wasn't all plain sailing, but there's a distinct fondness in the look back; a misty-eyed vibe, which is both emotive and endearing.

An old guitar that Dionisaf found on a flea market and then restored, is the pastoral abstract-folk and ambient-Americana thread that glues the album's evocative field recordings and electronic tinkering together. It sounds like he played it whilst sitting on his porch gazing out at the surrounding fauna and flora, the man-shaped cotton field and neglected rural roads that thread the state's more rural areas, whilst he contemplated his impending move north, to a new life in Washington D.C. Other, less native, instruments also make appearances, and subtle electronic sounds abound, but, due to the guitar and field recordings, the focus is always grounded and tellurian, with a nostalgic quality that will send the listener down memory lane too; to reminisce about good times and bad, happiness and heartbreak, missed opportunities, and places and faces that are no more.

---

Playlist Companion

Find Dionisaf in the Slow Ambient Playlist.